Craig Drobis is the Director of SVP for boys action figures and collectors for Jakks Pacific. Craig will be answering your questions for all Ask Jakks submissions. ToyHypeUSA will be sending him monthly questions and we will have your answers back on or around the beginning of each month. Send us your questions to [email protected] by January 26th.
Jakks Pacific products can be ordered on Entertainment Earth, BigBadToyStore and Amazon.com.
For future reference, please keep in mind that Jakks Pacific cannot specifically answer questions on advanced unannounced products due to retailer or licensor policies.
1. I would like to follow-up on the recent statement that classic Star Wars film characters such as Bossk won’t be made at this time, as Jakks is moving forward on current film characters. Does this also imply that offering a Boba Fett Big Figs with a blaster (as he was not previously offered with one) even as a convention exclusive are off the table, or are convention exclusives for classic Star Wars characters from the original trilogy something that Jakks could consider?
When answering the questions that presented, I focus on the mainline retail offering of products. We do have retail and convention exclusive offerings from time to time for which we make specific announcements and oftentimes we broaden the character selection to meet specific opportunities. That was a long way of saying never say never, but there isn’t anything to announce at this time.
2. With New York ToyFair coming up, are any new licenses going to be announced that you can talk about at this time?
New York Toy Fair is coming up quickly. Any product or brand announcements are typically made at the show or just before it..
3. Is the World of Warcraft line done, or has Jakks been considering any new figures for this in 2018?
Unfortunately our agreement with the Warcraft movie line has come to an end. We are very happy with the product that we created and we have shipped all the figures we produced.
4. Three words – Avengers: Infinity War. Any products planned (including RC vehicles and tsum tsum)?
Those are some very attractive words to say. Marvel has a tremendous line up of movies for 2018. One of the challenges we manage is that with so much content coming out to make toys with, we need to coordinate the announcements and reveals with Marvel. We can’t get into any specific details, but Jakks’ Marvel radio control licensing agreement remains active.
5. It’s obvious that something will be offered for the Aquaman Movie such as a new big fig, but without giving anything away, can you confirm any additional characters besides Aquaman are planned for 2018?
It is really tough to not give anything away and still answer the question. The movie is in rapid development and looks phenomenal. Beyond that there isn’t anything I can share at this time with regards to the product line.